Reexamining the Minneapolis Repeat Complaint Address Policing (RECAP) Experiment, 1986-1987 (ICPSR 6172)

Version Date: Jan 12, 2006

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Principal Investigator(s):
Michael E. Buerger, Crime Control Institute

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06172.v1

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Summary

This study reexamines REPEAT COMPLAINT ADDRESS POLICING: TWO FIELD EXPERIMENTS IN MINNEAPOLIS, 1985-1987 (ICPSR 9788). The original Repeat Complaint Address Policing (RECAP) experiment was a field study of the strategy of problem-oriented policing, which used control and treatment groups consisting of specific addresses in the city of Minneapolis. The impact of problem-oriented policing was measured by comparing the number of 911 calls received for each address during a baseline period to the number received during a period when experimental treatments were in effect. Several features of the original data distort the one-to-one correspondence between a 911 call and an event, such as the occurrence of multiple versions of the same call in the databases. The current study identifies and attempts to correct these occurrences by applying multiple levels of data cleaning procedures to the original data to establish a better one-to-one call-to-event correspondence.

Citation

Buerger, Michael E. Reexamining the Minneapolis Repeat Complaint Address Policing (RECAP) Experiment, 1986-1987. [distributor], 2006-01-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06172.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (91-IJ-CX-0029)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

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Time Period(s)

1986 -- 1987

Date of Collection

1990 -- 1993
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Study Purpose

This study reexamines REPEAT COMPLAINT ADDRESS POLICING: TWO FIELD EXPERIMENTS IN MINNEAPOLIS, 1985-1987 (ICPSR 9788), conducted by the Minneapolis Police Department and Lawrence W. Sherman of the Crime Control Institute. Several features of the original data distort the one-to-one correspondence between a 911 call and an event, such as the occurrence of multiple versions of the same call in the databases. The current study identifies and attempts to correct these occurrences by applying multiple levels of data cleaning procedures to establish a better one-to-one call-to-event correspondence. Using this data collection, researchers should be able to determine if the conclusions of the original study should be modified after the distortions in the original data have been addressed.

Study Design

The original RECAP study was designed as a randomized controlled field experiment to study the strategy of problem-oriented policing. It used individual geographic addresses in the city of Minneapolis as the unit of analysis and compiled a database from archived 911 computer tapes created by the Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center (MECC). Addresses were then ranked according to the frequency with which they appeared in the database. Five hundred addresses were chosen for the experiment and were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups, each consisting of 125 commercial and 125 residential addresses. The current study identifies three types of distortion in the original databases: True Mirrors, Contemporaneous Calls, and Migrating Calls. True Mirrors are multiple versions of a single call that are created by the idiosyncrasies of the MECC computer system. Contemporaneous Calls are multiple calls to MECC regarding a single event. Migrating Calls are calls that are associated with one address, but then are reassigned to another address, while the original address remains in the database. The data in this study are recreations of the original RECAP databases, which were then modified. (The actual databases of the original study were not available, and consequently it was necessary to reconstruct them.) The sixteen data files are organized such that each file corresponds to either an "A", "B", "C", or "D" level of data cleaning. Each file contains either commercial or residential addresses from either the baseline or experimental years. The "A" level data is a close approximation of the databases used in the original RECAP study. The "B" level data is a subset of the "A" level data created by deleting True Mirrors. The "C" level data are a subset of the "B" level data without concurrent calls regarding a single event. The "D" level data contain only dispatched calls to an address.

Sample

The original RECAP study used random selection of addresses. The current study modifies the random selection by the application of data cleaning procedures.

Universe

The sample was drawn from a universe consisting of the 2,000 most frequently referenced addresses in calls to the Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center (911) during 1986-1987.

Unit(s) of Observation

Geographic addresses in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Data Source

Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center 911 computer tapes.

Data Type(s)

Description of Variables

The sixteen data files use the same variables. Each record contains information regarding a specific 911 call. Data were collected on the volume of calls to an address, the date and time of the 911 call, the nature of the call (i.e., domestic disturbance, traffic accident), and the disposition of the call.

Response Rates

Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales

Not applicable.

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Original Release Date

1994-05-20

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Buerger, Michael E. REEXAMINING THE MINNEAPOLIS REPEAT COMPLAINT ADDRESS POLICING (RECAP) EXPERIMENT, 1986-1987. Minneapolis, MN: Michael E. Buerger, Crime Control Institute [producer], 1993. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1994. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06172.v1

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 19 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 18 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 17 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

1994-05-20 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Standardized missing values.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.